The Stuckists Punk Victorian
Encyclopedia
Walker Art Gallery
The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England, outside of London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group, and is promoted as "the National Gallery of the North" because it is not a local or regional gallery but is part...
and Lady Lever Art Gallery
Lady Lever Art Gallery
The Lady Lever Art Gallery was founded in 1922 by Sunlight Soap magnate, William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, and dedicated to the memory of his wife....
in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
from 18 September 2004 to 20 February 2005, and was part of the 2004 Liverpool Biennial
Liverpool Biennial
Liverpool Biennial is a British international festival of contemporary art held in Liverpool. The festival comprises the International Exhibition, the John Moores Painting Prize, the Bloomberg New Contemporaries Exhibition and the Independents Biennial....
.
It comprised more than 250 paintings by 37 artists, mostly from the UK but also with a representation of international Stuckist artists from the US, Germany and Australia. There was also a smaller accompanying exhibition of the Stuckist Photographers. A book, The Stuckists Punk Victorian, was published to accompany the exhibition. Six fringe shows took place internationally.
Some of the work was compared with the "shocking" work of YBAs
Young British Artists
Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...
, Jake and Dinos Chapman
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Iakovos "Jake" Chapman and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman are English visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers, who work together as a collaborative sibling duo...
. The gallery posted a warning notice of some "sexual and violent" subject matter.
Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
journalist, Jane Kelly
Jane Kelly
Jane Kelly is a journalist and artist, affiliated with the Stuckist art group. She was dismissed from the Daily Mail after exhibiting a painting of Myra Hindley.-Life and work:...
, exhibited a painting of Myra Hindley and was dismissed from her job.
Critical reaction to the show ranged from "dreadful" to "the next big thing in art". Sir Nicholas Serota
Nicholas Serota
Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota is a British art curator. Serota was director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, before becoming director of the Tate, the United Kingdom's national gallery of modern and British art in 1988. He was awarded a knighthood in 1999. He...
, director of the Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
gallery, visited the show and called it "lively". The Walker deemed it a very successful show and extended the run.
In 2005, the Stuckists offered 160 of the paintings as a donation to the Tate gallery. This was turned down by Serota on the grounds that the work was not of "sufficient quality". The rejection stimulated a campaign by the group over purchases of trustee work by the Tate, which was subsequently censured by the Charity Commission
Charity Commission
The Charity Commission for England and Wales is the non-ministerial government department that regulates registered charities in England and Wales....
.
The Stuckists
The Stuckists were founded in 1999 by Charles ThomsonCharles Thomson (artist)
Charles Thomson is an English artist, painter, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art...
and Billy Childish
Billy Childish
Billy Childish is an English artist, painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist...
to promote figurative
Figurative art
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...
painting and oppose conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
. The name was derived from an insult by Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
. The original group of 13 artists has now grown to an international movement of over 160 groups in 40 countries. Childish left the group in 2001.
Walker Art Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
and the Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
.
The Gallery posted a notice:
- VISITOR NOTICE: THE STUCKISTS PUNK VICTORIAN
- Stuckist artists believe in "honest and uncensored expression". Their wide range of subject matter includes themes of a sexual and violent nature. Some of the images in this exhibition may not be suitable for children.
The show was extended from two to five months and the Walker called it "a really, really popular show and very successful."
Lady Lever Art Gallery
Lady Lever Art Gallery
The Lady Lever Art Gallery was founded in 1922 by Sunlight Soap magnate, William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, and dedicated to the memory of his wife....
concentrated on the theme of "Art and Artists", including Stuckist interpretations of past work by artists such as Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter.-Suffolk:Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woolen goods. At the age of thirteen he impressed his father with his penciling skills so that he let...
, Frans Hals
Frans Hals
Frans Hals was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portraiture.-Biography:Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp...
and Georges Seurat. The gallery also staged the first national exhibition by the Stuckist Photographers.
Book
A 144-page book was published by National Museums LiverpoolNational Museums Liverpool
National Museums Liverpool, previously known as National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, comprises several museums and art galleries in and around Liverpool, England. All museums and galleries in this group have free admission...
to accompany the show with 150 colour illustrations, including work by all the artists, as well as photographs showing the history of the group. A photograph from 1987 shows some of the group members in an earlier form as The Medway Poets
The Medway Poets
The Medway Poets were founded in Medway, North Kent in 1979. They were an English punk based poetry performance group and later formed the core of the first Stuckists Art Group. The members were Miriam Carney, Billy Childish, Rob Earl, Bill Lewis, Sexton Ming and Charles Thomson...
, at which time Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
was associated with them. Other photographs are of demonstrations outside the Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
, two artists (Ella Guru
Ella Guru
Ella Guru is an American painter and musician living in London. She was a member of Mambo Taxi and the Voodoo Queens. In 1999, she became one of the founding members of the Stuckist art movement.-Life:Ella Guru was born in Ohio, USA...
and Sexton Ming
Sexton Ming
Sexton Ming is a British artist, poet and musician who was a founding member of The Medway Poets and the Stuckists art group .-Life and career:...
) getting married in drag, and Stella Vine
Stella Vine
Stella Vine is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting with subject matter drawn from either her personal life of family, friends and school, or rock stars, royalty and celebrities.After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, she left home and in...
in the Vote Stuckist show in 2001.
The book also includes two Stuckist manifestos, biographies of the artists, a section on Stuckist photographers, and two essays, "A Stuckist on Stuckism" by group co-founder, Charles Thomson
Charles Thomson (artist)
Charles Thomson is an English artist, painter, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art...
and "Manifestos From the Edge and Beyond" by art historian Paul O'Keefe
Paul O'Keefe
Paul O'Keefe is an American actor best known for his work on The Patty Duke Show and in the film The Daydreamer. Born in Boston, he began his schooling at the Immaculate Conception School and at the New England Conservatory of Music. He appeared on television with such stars as Sid Caesar, Sarah...
. The book was edited by Frank Milner and designed by March Design, Liverpool.
Cover
Paul Harvey (artist)
Paul Harvey is a British musician and Stuckist artist, whose work was used to promote their 2004 show at the Liverpool Biennial. His paintings draw on pop art and the work of Alphonse Mucha, and often depict celebrities, including Madonna....
(acrylic on canvas, 212.5 × 75.5 cm), and was originally intended to accompany a previous show, the Stuckists Real Turner Prize Show 2003, when the placard held by the main figure read "SEROTA NEEDS A GOOD SPANKING". Due to an argument between Harvey and another artist, Gina Bold
Gina Bold
Gina Boldis an English artist/poet, who makes paintings, stained glass and sculpture. She was an artist in residence at Arlington House from May to November 2007.- Life and work :...
, the painting was not used and the show was cancelled. Some months later the placard was repainted to promote the Walker show. The main figure is based on a photograph of the model, musician and DJ Emily Mann, taken by Charles Thomson.
A Stuckist on Stuckism
Thomson's essay starts with an account of a confrontation with Sir Nicholas SerotaNicholas Serota
Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota is a British art curator. Serota was director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, before becoming director of the Tate, the United Kingdom's national gallery of modern and British art in 1988. He was awarded a knighthood in 1999. He...
in Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, England, United Kingdom. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. There are a number of statues and sculptures in the square, with one plinth displaying changing pieces of...
in 2001 on the occasion of a Stuckist demonstration against the installation of Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread
Rachel Whiteread, CBE is an English artist, best known for her sculptures, which typically take the form of casts. She won the annual Turner Prize in 1993—the first woman to win the prize....
's sculpture Monument. It then traces the history of the group from origins in 1979 to its foundation in 1999, reviews "A Dysfunctional Decade of Saatchi Art", describes Stuckist demonstrations at the Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
and gives background on artists who have left the Stuckists—co-founder Billy Childish
Billy Childish
Billy Childish is an English artist, painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist...
, Stella Vine
Stella Vine
Stella Vine is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting with subject matter drawn from either her personal life of family, friends and school, or rock stars, royalty and celebrities.After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, she left home and in...
and Gina Bold
Gina Bold
Gina Boldis an English artist/poet, who makes paintings, stained glass and sculpture. She was an artist in residence at Arlington House from May to November 2007.- Life and work :...
. A final section puts the group in context in a wider historical view with a proposition that the development of Modernism
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
has been a "story of fragmentation" and that it is necessary to provide a holistic approach. A passage by Eamon Everall
Eamon Everall
Eamon Everall is an English artist and educator. He was one of the 12 founder members of the Stuckists art group. He paints in a "neo-cubist" style, with subjects from life worked on over a long period.-Life and career:...
is quoted to explain Stuckist art:
Manifestos From the Edge
Paul O'Keefe's essay, Manifestos from the Edge and Beyond, is in three sections. The first treats the history of Modernism in Britain and the scorn that greeted the 1910 Post-impressionistPost-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
exhibition. He describes the emergence of the homegrown radical movement, the Vorticists
Vorticism
Vorticism, an offshoot of Cubism, was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century. It was based in London but international in make-up and ambition.-Origins:...
and how they clashed on one occasion, using brass knuckledusters, with rival avant-garde group the Italian Futurists
Futurism (art)
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city...
. He includes Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
President, Alfred Munnings
Alfred Munnings
Sir Alfred James Munnings KCVO, PRA was known as one of England's finest painters of horses, and as an outspoken enemy of Modernism...
', notorious 1949 speech, wanting to kick Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
. He traces the evolution of radicalism into the new establishment, setting the scene for the Stuckist challenge to it.
Jeremy Paxman
Jeremy Dickson Paxman is a British journalist, author and television presenter. He has worked for the BBC since 1977. He is noted for a forthright and abrasive interviewing style, particularly when interrogating politicians...
with Charles Thomson attacking that year's Turner Prize and artist Brad Lochore defending it. Thomson was displaying Stuckist paintings, while Lochore had brought along a plastic detergent bottle on a cardboard plinth. At one stage Lochore states, "if people say it's art, it's art". Paxman asks, "So you can say anything is art?" and Lochore replies, "You could say everything is art..." At this point Thomson, off-screen, can be heard to say, "Is my shoe art?" while at the same time his shoe appears in front of Lochore, who observes, "If you say it is. I have to judge it on those terms." Thomson's response is, "I've never heard anything so ludicrous in my life before."
Part three describes the Stuckists' line of argument as "devastating in its capacity to demolish the pretensions of Conceptualism" and cites Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
's observation that "The best spot painting you can have by me is one painted by Rachel" (one of Hirst's assistants). O'Keefe's conclusion remains undecided as to "whether the Momart warehouse blaze indeed represents the funeral pyre of BritArt
Young British Artists
Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...
" and as to the future of Stuckism's role "from its outpost on the edge".
Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
feature writer Jane Kelly
Jane Kelly
Jane Kelly is a journalist and artist, affiliated with the Stuckist art group. She was dismissed from the Daily Mail after exhibiting a painting of Myra Hindley.-Life and work:...
, who is also a Stuckist artist, was sacked by the paper after exhibiting her painting If We Could Undo Psychosis 2 in the show. The painting shows a family group of mother and two children with child-killer Myra Hindley substituted for the father and holding a teddy bear. Thomson said, "It is not glorifying Myra Hindley, it's called psychosis—can anyone ever be healed is the question posed by this painting."
Kelly's sacking was reported on the front page of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, which described how the Daily Mail had welcomed a previous work by Kelly showing London Mayor Ken Livingstone
Ken Livingstone
Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone is an English politician who is currently a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party...
in the context of the 1944 Stauffenberg plot against Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, and commented:
- "Stuckism, the art movement founded by Tracey Emin's former boyfriend to oppose the pretensions of Britart, claims to advocate 'honest, uncensored expression'. Unfortunately, the Daily Mail does not appear to share those values".
The Daily Mails managing editor, Lawrence Sear, who dismissed Kelly, described as "unmitigated rubbish" the claim that the loss of her job was related to her artwork and that "the departure of Jane Kelly is a matter only for her and the newspaper."
Reaction
There was a very diverse reaction to the show. Adrian SearleAdrian Searle
Adrian Searle is the chief art critic of The Guardian newspaper in Britain, and has been writing for the paper since 1996. Previously he was a painter. He curates art shows and also writes fiction.-Career:...
, art critic of The Guardian called it "dreadful" and Tate Chairman, Paul Myners
Paul Myners
Paul Myners, Baron Myners, CBE was the Financial Services Secretary in HM Treasury, the UK's finance ministry, during the Labour Government of Gordon Brown. He held the position from October 2008 until May 2010, and was made a life peer in consequence of his appointment, as he was not an elected...
denounced it as "a travesty". "Young British Artist" Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk is a British artist and one of the Young British Artists . He often uses his own image in life-size sculptures of famous people.-Life and work:...
advised in a BBC interview that people should try to see the show.
The sexual and violent content of some of the paintings was commented on. Mark Lawson
Mark Lawson
Mark Gerard Lawson is an English journalist, broadcaster and author.-Life and career:Born in Hendon, London, Lawson was raised in Yorkshire and is a Leeds United fan. He was educated at St Columba's College in St Albans and took a degree in English at University College London, where his lecturers...
on BBC Radio 4 warned, with particular reference to a painting by Joe Machine
Joe Machine
Joe Machine is an English artist, poet and writer. He is a founding member of the Stuckists art group. His work is "raw and autobiographical".-Life:...
of two sailors having anal sex, that the paintings might cause controversy, as they were "certainly not ... conventional" but contained "very bold and explicit images".
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Iakovos "Jake" Chapman and Konstantinos "Dinos" Chapman are English visual artists, often known as the Chapman Brothers, who work together as a collaborative sibling duo...
could produce", adding "the Stuckists have a strong philosophical base". Simon Pia, another writer in the same paper, predicted the group would be "the next big thing in art".
A review in the inflight magazine Velocity evaluated the work as "a worthy argument for painting as the fundamental medium of artistic expression ... a refreshing willingness to be understood in today's world of oblique messages." The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
saw the presence of the work in an established national museum as "another step on the road to critical acceptance", as did the museum review site 24hourmuseum: ""They’ve spent years fighting the establishment. Now ... the Stuckists have been invited to join it."
Fringe shows
- "Stigmata" or "Censorious": The Stuckists Punk Victorian at the Rivington Gallery in London
- Stuck in the Country at the Brockdam Gallery in NorthumberlandNorthumberlandNorthumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
- Stuckists in the Walker - Stuckists in Lewenhagen at the Stuckism Centre in Germany
- Stuckist Punk Victorian Lite If You Can't Be Bothered to Go to Liverpool in EdinburghEdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
- More of the Welsh Bit of the Stuckists Punk Victorian at the Stuckism Centre in Wales
- The Stuckists Punk Victorian In the Toilet in New Haven, US.
The Rivington Gallery issued a statement from its Director, Harold Werner Rubin that he was showing work from private collections by ex-Stuckists, Stella Vine
Stella Vine
Stella Vine is an English artist, who lives and works in London. Her work is figurative painting with subject matter drawn from either her personal life of family, friends and school, or rock stars, royalty and celebrities.After a difficult relationship with her stepfather, she left home and in...
and Gina Bold
Gina Bold
Gina Boldis an English artist/poet, who makes paintings, stained glass and sculpture. She was an artist in residence at Arlington House from May to November 2007.- Life and work :...
, which had been barred from the Walker show because of their objection, as well as a painting Charity Work by Philip Absolon which had also been excluded. The Scotsman reported that Stella Vine had threatened to commit suicide if her work was in the Stuckist show.
Serota's visit and Tate donation
Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision
Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision is one of the best known paintings to come out of the Stuckism art movement, and a likely "signature piece" for the movement, standing for its opposition to conceptual art...
. In fact, he did visit and met the artists, describing the work as "lively".
In 2005, the Stuckists offered a donation of 160 paintings from the show with a value of £500,000 to the Tate. This offer was rejected by Serota, who wrote, "the works in question have been reviewed by our curators and presented to the Board of Trustees ... We do not feel that the work is of sufficient quality in terms of accomplishment, innovation or originality of thought to warrant preservation in perpetuity in the national collection." The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
reported:
Thomson said, "The Tate ... rejected Modernism and artists such as Matisse and Picasso ... Now it has lost the nation the prime works of an international movement founded in Britain. A direct consequence of this was a media campaign Thomson led over the Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
's purchase of its trustee Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
's work, The Upper Room
The Upper Room (paintings)
The Upper Room is an installation of 13 paintings of rhesus macaque monkeys by English artist Chris Ofili in a specially-designed room. It was bought by the Tate gallery in 2005 from the Victoria Miro Gallery and was the cause of a media furore after a campaign initiated by the Stuckist art group...
. In 2006 the Charity Commission
Charity Commission
The Charity Commission for England and Wales is the non-ministerial government department that regulates registered charities in England and Wales....
censured the Tate and ruled that it had broken the law in making the purchase and similar trustee purchases during the previous 50 years. The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
called the verdict "one of the most serious indictments of the running of one of the nation's major cultural institutions in living memory."
Featured artists
Philip AbsolonPhilip Absolon
Philip Absolon is a British artist and a founder member of the Stuckists art group, exhibiting in the group shows, including The Stuckists Punk Victorian at the Walker Art Gallery in 2004, and taking part in Stuckist demonstrations against the Turner Prize...
, Frances Castle
Frances Castle
Frances Castle is an illustrator.Frances Castle was born in Kingston upon Thames, England.She is a full time illustrator and works across a broad range of media...
, Elsa Dax
Elsa Dax
Elsa Dax is a French painter and a member of the Stuckists art movement. Major themes in her work are myth, legend and fairytale.-Life and career:...
, Eamon Everall
Eamon Everall
Eamon Everall is an English artist and educator. He was one of the 12 founder members of the Stuckists art group. He paints in a "neo-cubist" style, with subjects from life worked on over a long period.-Life and career:...
, Ella Guru
Ella Guru
Ella Guru is an American painter and musician living in London. She was a member of Mambo Taxi and the Voodoo Queens. In 1999, she became one of the founding members of the Stuckist art movement.-Life:Ella Guru was born in Ohio, USA...
, Paul Harvey
Paul Harvey (artist)
Paul Harvey is a British musician and Stuckist artist, whose work was used to promote their 2004 show at the Liverpool Biennial. His paintings draw on pop art and the work of Alphonse Mucha, and often depict celebrities, including Madonna....
, Wolf Howard
Wolf Howard
Wolf Howard is an English artist, poet and filmmaker living in Chatham, Kent and was a founder member of the Stuckists art group...
, Bill Lewis
Bill Lewis
William "Bill" Lewis is an English artist, story-teller, poet and mythographer. He was a founder-member of The Medway Poets and of the Stuckists art group.-Early life:...
, Joe Machine
Joe Machine
Joe Machine is an English artist, poet and writer. He is a founding member of the Stuckists art group. His work is "raw and autobiographical".-Life:...
, Peter McArdle
Peter McArdle
Peter McArdle is an English artist, member of the Stuckists art group and gallery owner.-Life and career:Peter McArdle was born in Tynemouth. He finished St. Aidan's RC School, Tyneside, in 1983, at which point he began to get sales for his paintings, which have supported him since...
, Mandy McCartin
Mandy McCartin
Mandy McCartin is an artist based in London, a "proud butch lesbian" and DJ "classic soul fanatic".-Life and work:Mandy McCartin was born in Sheffield, England, and went to North East London Polytechnic...
, Sexton Ming
Sexton Ming
Sexton Ming is a British artist, poet and musician who was a founding member of The Medway Poets and the Stuckists art group .-Life and career:...
, Charles Thomson
Charles Thomson (artist)
Charles Thomson is an English artist, painter, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art...
, Charles Williams
Charles Williams (artist)
Charles Williams is a British artist. He is a founder member of the Stuckist art group and a member of the New English Art Club.-Life and work:Charles Williams was born in Evanston, Illinois USA and raised in England...
UK artists
Stephen Coots, David John Beesley, Dan Belton, John Bourne, Jonathon CoudrilleJonathon Coudrille
Jonathon Xavier Coudrille is an English artist, musician and writer. He was born in November 1945 on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall, an area with which he is still closely associated. His father was the artist and ventriloquist Francis Coudrill...
, Michelle England, Stephen Howarth
Stephen Howarth
Stephen Purbeck Howarth known as S.P. is a poet, Stuckist artist and actor. He was expelled from college for his paintings. He has demonstrated against the Turner prize at the Tate gallery.-Life and work:...
, Naive John
Naive John
Naive John is a British artist and figurative painter. His work shows attention to detail with subjects that combine elements from popular culture alongside the mythic and mundane. He has also in the past been involved in the Stuckism art movement.-Art: Naive John is a self-taught artist...
, Rachel Jordan
Rachel Jordan
This article is about the artist. For the Simpsons character see Rachel Jordan.Rachel Jordan is a British artist and has been a frequent guest exhibitor with the Stuckists...
, Jane Kelly
Jane Kelly
Jane Kelly is a journalist and artist, affiliated with the Stuckist art group. She was dismissed from the Daily Mail after exhibiting a painting of Myra Hindley.-Life and work:...
, Emily Mann, Daniel Pincham-Phipps, Matthew Robinson
Matthew Robinson
Matthew Robinson is a British film & television executive producer, producer, director and writer.Nicknamed Pope of Soap by UK tabloid The Sun, Robinson was lead director of BBC1's soap opera EastEnders when it launched in 1985...
, Mary von Stockhausen.
International artists
Godfrey BlowGodfrey Blow
Godfrey Blow is an artist based in Kalamunda, Western Australia. He is the founder of the Perth Stuckists.-Life and art:Godfrey Blow was born in Lincolnshire, England on the same day as fellow Stuckist artist, Eamon Everall...
, J Todd Dockery, Brett Hamil, Tony Juliano
Tony Juliano
Tony Juliano is a satirist painter in Orange, Connecticut and is affiliated with the international art movement Stuckism.-Life and work:Tony Juliano was born in 1975...
, ZF Lively, Terry Marks
Terry Marks
Terry Marks is a Stuckist artist in New York City. She was one of the US artists in the show The Stuckists Punk Victorian at the Walker Art Gallery during the 2004 Liverpool Biennial. She is also a tattooist and actor for film and television...
, Jesse Richards
Jesse Richards
Jesse Richards is a painter, filmmaker and photographer from New Haven, Connecticut and was affiliated with the international movement Stuckism.-Early life:...
Photographers
Andy Bullock, Larry Dunstan, Wolf HowardWolf Howard
Wolf Howard is an English artist, poet and filmmaker living in Chatham, Kent and was a founder member of the Stuckists art group...
, Charles Thomson
Charles Thomson (artist)
Charles Thomson is an English artist, painter, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art...
Further reading
- Ed. Frank Milner. "The Stuckists Punk Victorian", National Museums LiverpoolNational Museums LiverpoolNational Museums Liverpool, previously known as National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, comprises several museums and art galleries in and around Liverpool, England. All museums and galleries in this group have free admission...
, 2004, ISBN 1-902700-27-9.
External links
- The show on Stuckism website
- The show on the Walker Gallery website
- The show on the Stuckism Photography website
- Charles Thomson's essay "A Stuckist on Stuckism" online
- List of Stuckist paintings rejected by the Tate (Excel doc)
- BBC interview with Bill Lewis at the show
- Nerve magazine review of the show